


Let This Be Our Last Goodbye

by elithewho



Category: Babylon Berlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Drug Use, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 09:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17485391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elithewho/pseuds/elithewho
Summary: OPINIONGereon Rath, formally of the Cologne Police Department, has been officially spared the firing squad and has been sentenced to a life in prison in its place for the cruel and senseless murder of Iosif Ivanovich, “Saint Joseph,” an innocent man. The despicable fiend Rath, once revered as a war hero, has shown himself to be the lowliest coward, afflicted by the disease emblematic of all cowards: the weakness of character he attempted to mask with a degenerate addiction to the drug morphine. These vice-ridden and sinful disorders were used as a plea not to take his life, but I say remove this filth from the breeding stock! At least his influenced has been excised from the Berlin Police Force like so much cancer and the noble institution may rise above his corrupting influence...~Gereon in prison.





	Let This Be Our Last Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> lawl. You can't expect historical accuracy from this. Or even like... how canon... compliant it is. I'm really just into the Gereon suffering. And there will be a lot of suffering.
> 
> Thanks and love to Morgan, my rock <3
> 
> Title is from "All Your Faithless Loyalties" by Two Gallants (album version)

All his dreams were about dying. And they weren’t always nightmares.

Helga visited him at first, while he was at the jail, awaiting and during his trial. She’d cry sometimes and Gereon would endeavour to be strong for her, put on a brave face. But it got harder and harder. By the first day of his trial, he knew it was hopeless. It was a sham more than anything, the judge frowning and dismissive of everything brought up in his defense, his former colleagues and the prosecution using the court to grandstand about his moral turpitude and disgrace to the Fatherland.

Off to the prison yard with former Detective Inspector Rath. He was treated like any other prisoner. Stripped naked on arrival, subjected to a humiliating cavity search, hosed down with freezing water and coated with delousing powder then given mere seconds to dress in the cheap, scratchy prison issue clothes.

Gereon had once sat with his colleagues while they laughed and joked at the expense of such prisoners. How the scum deserved such treatment. Gereon had not been one to make light of it but he didn’t entirely disagree with the sentiment. What else did criminals deserve? They were no longer fit for society.

  


> _Berliner Morgenpost_
> 
> _OPINION_
> 
> _Gereon Rath, formally of the Cologne Police Department, has been officially spared the firing squad and has been sentenced to a life in prison in its place for the cruel and senseless murder of Iosif Ivanovich, “Saint Joseph,” an innocent man. The despicable fiend Rath, once revered as a war hero, has shown himself to be the lowliest coward, afflicted by the disease emblematic of all cowards: the weakness of character he attempted to mask with a degenerate addiction to the drug morphine. These vice-ridden and sinful disorders were used as a plea not to take his life, but I say remove this filth from the breeding stock! At least his influenced has been excised from the Berlin Police Force like so much cancer and the noble institution may rise above his corrupting influence..._  
> 

  


“You’re the worst type of trash,” a guard, Weber, told him. He poked Gereon in the side with his baton, a menacing gesture. “I would have enjoyed putting you down like a dog.”

Gereon simply let the man nudge him roughly as he was led to his cell. His new home. The walls were dark grey, once sealed with a lighter coat of cheap paint but it had all but chipped away. No window, no light but a bare bulb that flickered at odd times. His bed was small, a thin mattress on rusted springs that wailed in a high-pitched shriek at the slightest movement. A washbasin, a hole in the floor for waste. Nothing else.

But the despair that might have paralyzed him was subsumed by a different feeling. He hadn’t had a dose of morphine in more than a day. It itched under his skin at first, his heart beating a hard, horrible rhythm. His head pounded, he was heartsick and nauseous and the shaking made every limb tremble. It was so bad come morning that he couldn’t present himself outside his cell for morning inspection.

  
  


> _My Dearest Gereon,_
> 
> _As you can see from the postmark, I have returned to Cologne. It breaks my heart to leave you, but Moritz must be my priority now. Your parents have been exceedingly kind, allowing me to return so that they can be close to their only grandson. They have sent their regards, but have made it clear that they will not be visiting._
> 
> _I love you, Gereon, I will always love you, but I must now devote my life to my son..._
> 
> _I find myself thinking about those summer days by the lake, in our youth. It felt like we could have had anything then. We could have had the world. I wonder what could have been different if I had chosen you and not Anno..._

  


The hole may have been worse, but Gereon knew in his heart that there would be no relief regardless. By the time they dumped him in the cold and the dark, he was hallucinating. The field where he had left Anno, the chemical stink of gas and gunpowder and mortar shell. There never seemed to be any sun there, only a blank grey sky and the endless expanse of dirt and mud underneath it. The smell of death, blood and shit mingled with rot and vomit. Anno had called his name. _Anno had called his name._

It could have hours or days or even years when he came back to himself. Too nauseous to eat the food they had left, a congealed glop of slop, but he drank the water they’d left him haltingly. It was lukewarm and metallic on his tongue. The way blood would taste. He had pissed himself and the stench choked him, but he was too sick in his bones to feel the humiliation yet.

A slat in the door would open and food and water would be passed through. Gereon choked it down, knowing the only alternative was starvation. He needed strength, feeling weak as a kitten. Thinking about his future, his life, all he lost, was impossible. He focused only on the immediate present. The pain in his very bones, the hunger mixed with nausea and constant craving for one more dose of morphine to calm the screaming in his head. There was a little bump in the bend of his arm where Helga used to inject for him. It itched and he tried not to pick at it with his filthy hands. He could almost feel that blissful sting of the needle if he thought hard enough.

And Helga beside him. He’d spent so many years yearning for her that it felt like the natural state of things. Helga, far away, unreachable, untouchable. The unyielding suffering of his present. He’d never see her again. It was unbearable, but he hoped she’d stay away. Her life would be better without him now.

  


> _Patient presents with the shaking and convulsions common in veterans who display cowardice in battle. He admits to a dependency on morphine to calm these attacks and appear normal. He began by taking the drug by mouth and now has been taking it intravenously, a classic escalation. Patient presents with nightmares and difficulty sleeping. Administering a sedative alleviates the symptoms but long-term medication in this area is not recommended. It is the recommendation of myself and Doctor Schmidt that the patient not receive the death penalty in the pending trial against him, as his mental distress is characteristic of insanity..._

  


Outside of solitary, Gereon was confronted with a different beast: other prisoners. He knew from the moment he stepped into the yard that he had a target painted on his back, but it did not make the reality easier to bear.

“Hey, copper,” one of them drawled. He was huge, towering over Gereon with bristling menace. They were in the yard, breaking rocks pointlessly. Gereon, his muscles weakened by days in the hole and withdrawal from morphine, could barely keep up. “You’re falling behind. Making the rest of us pick up your slack.”

Gereon tried to make himself small and uninteresting. His eyes down, expression dim. Perhaps they would leave him alone if he didn’t present himself as an enticing target.

No such luck. He caught a fist in the stomach, hard and powerful, knocking the wind right out of him. The blows came from all sides, the huge prisoner and his buddies taking turns as Gereon curled up in a ball and only tried to endure it.

“Hey, back to work!” came the guards, but Gereon knew they had been watching the whole time, only intervening after all the goons got their licks in.

It was hard to stand. His arms and legs were trembling, panic making his chest constrict.

“I said back to work,” a guard growled, prodding Gereon hard in the shoulder. It was Weber, his eye glinting evilly.

“I will,” Gereon choked out. He spit, mouth full of blood. It stained the earth, dry and grey as it was.

“Now!” Weber hollered, his baton stabbing deep into Gereon’s ribs where he’d taken dozens of hard kicks moments before. He grunted in pain, trying hard not to vomit. He was entitled to only so much food and it would be a pity to waste it.

But he got up. Weber towered over him, fat and red-faced and smiling. Gereon’s hands shook as he picked up his axe, went back to feebly smashing rocks. Nothing else to do but carry on.

  
  


“Rath, come along.”

Gereon was in his cell, staring at the wall and picking out the patterns made in the pitted stone by years and years of decay. The sudden arrival of Weber was startling and novel. Obediently he followed, wrists clapped in irons.

“Your wife is here to see you,” Weber explained and Gereon tried not to register his surprise.

Wife? Immediately he thought of Helga. It was impossible to quell the spark of hope that made his heart race. Could she really be here to see him? One last time perhaps? He had wanted her to stay away, live her life, but the thought of seeing her again made him ache with longing all the same.

But it was not Helga in the small visiting room with its drab walls and small windows filled with dim sunlight.

“Gereon,” Charlotte said breathlessly, lips trembling as she attempted a smile.

His shock at seeing her kept him from answering. Weber and another guard stood close by, hands resting with menace on their sidearms and batons.

“How are you?” she asked, voice catching in her throat.

She looked lovely. Almost unbearably vibrant and alive. Cheeks pink, lips red and glossy, eyes bright. Very bright. He thought tears might spill from them at any moment.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled, knowing he looked absolutely wretched. He had no mirror to see himself but he knew his face was mottled with bruises, that he was thin and ashen, weighed down by the chains on his wrists, jaw unshaven. But he tried to smile for her all the same. It was pity that had brought her here, certainly, and he didn’t want her to think he was ungrateful.

But that didn’t seem to work. Charlotte looked more distressed that ever. She was wearing her green hat; the vividness of the colour almost made his eyes hurt. He hadn’t seen colour in what felt like years.

“Gereon,” she whispered, hand inching across the table between them, towards his chained wrists.

“No touching!” Weber barked and her hand jumped away.

“You didn’t need to come,” Gereon muttered, looking away. The pain in her eyes was too much to bear.

“I had to,” she said, voice tremulous, but strong. A fighting strength. “I brought you something. Can I?” She held out a small package to the guards who pawed through it before consenting to give it to Gereon. Paperback novels, cigarettes, an orange. The kindness nearly broke his heart all over again.

Charlotte was smiling as he struggled to form the words to thank her.

“I’ve been speaking with a barrister,” she said. “About an appeal.”

Gereon shook his head. “Don’t do that, don’t bother –” he mumbled.

“I have to.”

“Where are you possibly finding the money?” he said but she didn’t answer.

“You saved my life, remember?”

He looked up at her, her face positively glowing. He could imagine touching her wrist, feeling its steady thrum of life. She had practically died in his arms once before. The relief of feeling that pulse had ripped at something inside him, dislodged a cracked barrier around his heart.

“One more minute,” Weber said sharply.

Charlotte ignored him, still looking steadily at Gereon.

“I’ll come back,” she said and Gereon shook his head.

“No, Charlotte, don’t. It’s not worth anything.”

“I will, I promise.”

She couldn’t be dissuaded, it seemed. He’d somehow forgotten how stubborn she could be. He’d never been able to convince her of anything.

It felt like only seconds had passed before Weber was barking that time was up and she had to leave.

“Gereon!” Charlotte called as he was led away. “I’ll see you soon!”

Her voice followed him down the hall, echoing.

  
  


In his dreams, the firing squad took aim. He had no blindfold, had to look each and every one of them in the face, down the barrel of their guns. They all looked Anno. They all looked like salvation.

There was very little to occupy his time. Charlotte’s books were a blessing and, when he had the mental strength to concentrate at all, they transported him. They were simple, pulpy, adventure yarns, but the simplicity appealed to him when his reality was so fraught. The orange he'd devoured as soon as he'd returned to his cell, but he traded the cigarettes for a battered deck of playing cards and spent many mindless hours playing solitaire. The rest of his life was breaking rocks in the yard and avoiding the rest of the prisoners.

Karl, the leader of the most violent crew, could not pass by Gereon without raising his fist. Sometimes it was just a feint but Gereon would flinch anyway and Karl would laugh, deep and booming and humourless. Sometimes he would clap Gereon on the ear, dig his fist into his ribs, trip him as he walked past. Occasionally, Gereon would fight back. The constant fear and panic getting to him, he would lash out, meet Karl’s meaty fist with his own weaker blows. He always got beaten badly enough to be left in a bleeding heap, dragged back to his cell to sleep it off by mocking guards.

“You have a pretty mouth,” Karl growled, pinning Gereon to the wall. It was after showers, five seconds under a spray of icy water and Gereon felt especially vulnerable. “Small, like a girl’s.”

The panic was like cold water filling his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.

“Now, if I fuck it, you won’t tell anyone, will you?” He had a sharpened piece of metal in one hand, something he had found in the yard. He held it to Gereon’s throat, threatening.

“And then what?” Gereon grit out, fear making him bold. “I bite your prick off?”

Karl snarled and pressed the sharp metal to Gereon’s neck, biting into the skin just enough to pull out a trickle of blood. “Then I slit your throat and fuck that too,” he muttered, breath rancid and hot as he leaned in close.

“Do it,” Gereon snapped. “Do it, I don’t care. You’ll have slit my throat, but I'll have bit your dick off.”

Karl punched him so hard in the stomach he doubled over, unable to breath. He kicked him a few times, left him there bleeding. But he didn’t fuck his mouth or any other part of him.

Still, Gereon did not feel secure. He may have escaped Karl that time but he wasn’t likely to get lucky again. He hoped when Karl killed him it would be quick. Bleeding out on the shower floor didn’t seem so bad. Not in comparison to other ways.

The next day, Weber summoned him again. Gereon felt a leap of something like hope in his chest. He’d see Charlotte again. A kindly face. But Weber did not lead him to the visiting rooms as usual, but into the basement. Fear struck him. Was Weber going to dispose of him once and for all? Smear out the black mark on the Fatherland?

Deep in the bowels of the prison, Weber stopped him, unshackled his hands.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Rath,” he said. “I’ll be right here the whole time. You have twenty minutes.”

There, in the shadows, was Charlotte. She reached out, pulled him into an embrace. Gereon felt his knees buckle, his heart close to bursting. She smelled like sunshine and light, everything good and clean and new. Her touch steadied him. She was warmer than he recalled a living human body to be, softer too. There were tears in his eyes when he pulled away.

“Charlotte,” he muttered. “How did you...”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said softly and he thought of Weber, standing so close by. “Oh, look at you.” She touched his cheek, still tender from one of many beatings.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, annoyed now. “What did you trade to get in here?”

“Don’t worry about it!” she said again and Gereon felt a hot streak of rage. He could of only one thing she’d trade that Weber would be enticed by.

“Don’t do that again,” he bit out. “Whore yourself for me –”

Charlotte dropped her arms from his shoulders, anger creasing her brow. “I’ll whore myself for whatever reason I like,” she said tartly. “Would you rather I didn’t come at all?”

“Yes,” he replied automatically but it didn’t even sound genuine to his own ears.

Charlotte actually smirked. He’d forgotten how enraging she could be. “I brought you things, maybe I'll just keep them for myself.”

Out of her bag she pulled more books and cigarettes and most enticing of all – morphine vials.

“I hated to think of you suffering in here.”

She re-wrapped the gifts in brown paper, helped him tuck them securely in the waistband of his prison slacks. He’d grown so thin even the shirt and cardigan he wore hung loose, leaving plenty of room for contraband.

“Thank you,” he muttered, voice shaking only just.

With a tender look, Charlotte wrapped her fingers around his wrist, pulled him back into a hug. He dropped his head on her shoulder, defeated by this supreme gentleness. Tears stung his eyes, painful and hot, as though he were expelling acid. Charlotte was pressing his face hard into her neck and he knew she was muffling the sobs that had come pouring out of him, unbidden. Once it began, it was impossible to stop. He could only weep brokenly, surrounded by her hair and the sweet, feminine scent of her freshly soaped skin. His shoulders shook, racking his weakened body with painful retches.

But even the tears couldn’t last. Having cried himself empty, he lifted his head, tried to wipe the wetness from his face. Charlotte produced a handkerchief and did it for him, patted him dry and then kissed him there on the cheek. It was just a dry peck, chaste as anything, but Gereon still leaned into the touch.

“Good as new,” she muttered softly and tucked the damp handkerchief into his shirt pocket. “I’ll be back next week. I promise.”

There was a rattle and a shout and Weber was back, back with the chains and his baton. Gereon shuffled along, back to the crushing walls of his present reality.

“Your little whore wife has a talented mouth,” Weber sneered at him as he deposited him in his cell. Gereon bristled despite himself and Weber laughed. “Next time I'll be sure to fuck her sweet little cunt.”

He stared down at Gereon hard, daring him to talk back or rise to the bait. Gereon simply stared past him, fighting down the anger that rose like bile in his throat. Disappointed perhaps, Weber left him, laughing all the way. Bile still stinging his throat, Gereon unpacked her presents. Cigarettes could buy him more food and he’d already finished the books she’d given him last time. What to do with the morphine? Something inside him told him not to use it, not now. He’d dried out during his stay in the hole and she’d only given him so much. Best to keep it, hide it away in the loose crack of wall, wrapped in a sock.

That day in the yard, breaking rocks, his arms and back screaming in agony with every swing of the hammer, Gereon’s mind kept slipping back to Charlotte. He hadn’t really thought she would keep coming back. He wished he had told her not to again, tried to persuade her. If he had been crueler, perhaps she would have given up on him. Let him rot like he deserved. But her kindness was a light in the darkness, a flickering match in miles of wilderness. That miniscule spark of hope made it easier to swing the hammer, made his arms ache a fraction less.

Exhausted after another day of backbreaking work, Gereon could only lay motionless on his cot. But his mind would not let him sleep. Every muscle screamed in pain and his thoughts were insistent, swirling, catastrophizing. The slightest push in any direction would lead his thoughts to the battlefield where he’d left Anno. To the alley where he killed Saint Joseph. The taste of vomit in his mouth, concrete drying and flaking off his skin like fish scales.

Hands shaking, he reached into his shirt pocket. Charlotte’s handkerchief was still tucked there, dry now from his tears. It was plain white, nothing fancy, no lace or embroidery. But it was hers. He touched it to his face, felt the softness that had also touched her hand. He might have been imagining it, but he thought he detected the barest trace of her perfume. Sweet, clean, like floral-scented soap. Charlotte’s skin.

Desire had been a casualty of his incarceration. There was no place for it here, but he was still a man. He longed for her like any man deprived of touch for too long. He closed his eyes, tried to think of Helga instead, of those clandestine trysts, rucking up her dress and pushing down his trousers and rutting into her with their clothes half on, so lost in their desperation. But those thoughts kept fading. Memories of Charlotte were far more potent, more tangible. He had fallen into her arms only that morning, felt her body against his. He could smell her hair if he concentrated hard enough.

That memory of seeing her naked breasts sprung up from deep in his memory. The heat and humidity of the bathhouse had made his clothes cling, his breath short. He’d been so angry with her, so annoyed at her stubbornness and cheeky disregard of proper police procedure. But how easily she had made him feel like an awkward schoolboy when she reprimanded him, flashing her breasts unabashedly. He’d pretended he hadn’t looked, hadn’t thought of them later, deep in thought and teetering on the edge of the fall into morphine and oblivion. She was very beautiful. She knew it, flaunted it sometimes. Never was ashamed of it.

His cock had hardened, hot against his thigh. Annoyed at himself, Gereon reached down, pinched it hard around the head and hissed at the sensation just over the edge of pain. He could take himself in hand, relieve some of that pressure, maybe give himself a moment of actual pleasure in the hellscape that had become his life. God knew that other prisoners indulged and were not quiet about it. But Gereon could not summon the energy. He simply allowed the feeling to exist, the tightness in his groin, the heat and urgency.

All that followed him into sleep. In the dream, he was in the bathhouse with Charlotte, Greta and the attendant nowhere in sight. They had all the time in the world, a tub of hot, steaming water that would never get cold. Charlotte’s slippery body, wet and naked beneath him. Her laughter filled his ears as he touched her, her soft hands touching his body in turn.

“Gereon,” she whispered, voice like a trembling moth beside his ear. “Make love to me.”

He wanted to. Her legs wrapped around him; she enveloped him in warmth. Her heart was beating in time with his. It was like there was only one heartbeat between them, only one body. They were so close.

Gereon woke to the morning’s alarm drilling into his skull. He realized with a pang of shame that he’d ejaculated in his sleep, like he was a schoolboy all over again. But the dream still lingered, like sweetness on the tongue after a bite of chocolate. Charlotte’s handkerchief was still crumpled in his fist. He folded it carefully, tucked it in his shirt, right next to his heart.

  
  


“We have to stop meeting like this,” Charlotte said lightly, tucking his hand in hers.

When Weber had led him into the basement, Charlotte was still adjusting her dress. Gereon tried not to let it bother him, but it did. Charlotte must have noticed his discomfort because she gave him a look that was familiar. Like she was despairing at how dreadfully old-fashioned he was.

“It’s not so bad, really,” she said. “It’s like getting a shot at the doctor’s, you just turn your head away.”

Gereon couldn’t imagine that being true, but he let it be.

“There’s bad news,” she said, as soon she’d given him her pack of treats. No morphine for him today. “The appeal was lost, no judge would hear it.”

Gereon laughed bitterly. “Of course. They want me to rot in here.”

Charlotte touched his wrist, rubbed it soothingly. “I’ll think of something else.”

“There is nothing else.”

“I’ll keep trying anyway,” she said fiercely and he wanted to touch her hair, soothe the tigress that reared up on his behalf. He wasn’t worth all that fuss.

“Anything you’d think of requires money,” he said pointedly but Charlotte didn’t even blink.

“Well, don’t worry about that.”

He gave her a skeptical look.

“Let me worry about money.”

He wanted to tell her not to do it, whatever it was. He thought he could guess, but even if he could it wouldn’t matter. Charlotte would do it anyway.

“Tell me about your day,” he muttered instead.

“I went to the Markethalleneun,” she said. There were very close together, speaking in whispers to give them the smallest bit of privacy. “All the flowers were out in stalls, filling the air with sweetness. Every colour you’ve ever heard of was there, and some you’ve never even imagined. There was music too, an organ grinder entertaining the children. They would laugh and clap and he’d dance a jig. I went to where the sausages are hung up for sale; you can smell the spices they use, almost taste them. So many different flavours...”

With his eyes closed, Gereon could almost imagine it. Like he was really there. He imagined strolling through the market with Charlotte’s hand in his. Like a proper couple, not a care in the world except how they would spend their evening. Would they go out dancing or go back home to make love for hours...

It was Charlotte’s voice in his ear like a soothing balm that caused Gereon to lean into her, chin on her shoulder like they were slow dancing. As her voice tapered off, he found himself humming an old tune he was fond of, more of a lullaby than anything. They swayed side to side, her hand in his, the other around his waist.

“Time’s up!” barked Weber and they broke apart.

The chains were back, but Charlotte’s expression remained tender and sweet. He carried that image in his head all day.

A visit from Charlotte always marked a day as good in Gereon’s mental calendar. He could hold onto those memories, brief as they were. But good things never last.

Karl cornered him in the showers as usual. Other days he was just looking to scare him, knock him around a little, make him bleed and laugh about it. But when he got Gereon in a headlock, it was immediately clear he had other things in mind.

“You’re a tricky little thing, copper,” the man growled, voice thick and gravelly. “My usual piece got released last week. I haven’t had a fuck in days.”

Gereon attempted to buck him off, but Karl was larger and much, much stronger. The guards were there, they always were, every hour of the day he wasn’t locked in his cell, but from the corner of his eye, Gereon saw them exchange a look and then leave.

Fear choked him. Karl had his usual sharpened piece of metal and Gereon’s mind shrieked in panic.

“Kill me, just kill me instead, you piece of shit,” he grunted but Karl only laughed, high and cruel.

“I’d rather you be warm when I fuck you.”

Karl fisted his hair and Gereon’s head met the tiled wall with a sick crunch. Dazed, stunned and unsteady, Karl shoved him face down on the damp floor.

It was cold, wet, stinking of mildew. There was a crack in one of the tiles that looked like a Z. Gereon stared at it, traced each tiny fissure, each flake of tile that had chipped off. It was better to focus on something outside of himself, something that wasn’t the pain and the helplessness. The ringing in his ears, his own blood pooling with the water and swimming down the drain. Karl’s body was a crushing weight, his panting breath like a bellows working right next to Gereon’s ear.

When it was over, Karl simply left him to bleed. Gereon was shaking almost too much to move when the guards returned.

“Shower time is up, Rath,” one of them said, gruff and nonchalant, as though Gereon were simply loitering.

It took all his effort to stand, to pull on his clothes. Usually, the guard would give him a beating for being slow, maybe even threaten the hole. But he didn’t, just allowed Gereon to struggle with his buttons for long minutes before poking him along, herding him back to his cell.

There was no way to lie and be comfortable. On his back was out of the question. He ached, inside and out. The feeling of violation was in his skin. He thought tears might come, sobs. But he merely felt empty. Somehow that was worse than despair. It was as though something inside of him had been cut away, some vital part that had made him human.

It felt impossible to get out of bed the next morning. A guard had to coax him along, and he was so recalcitrant it earned him a day in the hole. That almost felt like a blessing, a relief from work in the yard and having to see Karl again. But being alone with his thoughts was a different kind of torture.

He wanted to stop existing. Less than a year inside and he was already despairing. The rest of his life felt impossible to bear. In the complete blackness of the hole, he started to see things, floating up before his eyes like a moving picture. Helga, in some dull, distant way. Charlotte’s eyes, bright and vivid in the gloom. Anno’s face, his burned face. Judging him, blaming him. He could see Saint Joseph too, calling him home.

Out of solitary, Gereon walked as if in a nightmare. The familiar, claustrophobic walls didn’t seem real, the other prisoners were like strangers. He saw Karl, his menacing smile. It only steeled his resolve.

Back in his cell, Gereon waited until lights out and then found his morphine stash by feel. It had been a long time, but he still remembered how it worked. Loaded the syringe, found that raised bump in his arm that signaled a vein and let the sweetness of oblivion consume him. He took more than he’d ever taken at one time. It was imperative that he not wake up.

  
  


The world around him was white. White walls, white sheets. Gereon felt just as insubstantial, like he was totally transparent and would soon float away into nothing.

His arms, at first too heavy to lift, proved literally impossible to lift. He was strapped in, arms, legs and chest. He screamed feebly, throat achingly dry.

A face appeared above his. A woman in a white wimple, her expression quite stern. She said something, but he couldn’t make it out. His ears were stuffed with cotton balls. He was thirsty, so thirsty, he tried to tell her. He thrashed against the restraints, but he was so weak. He felt a bite in his arm and then there was blackness.

It seemed like he spent years strapped to that bed. In an endless cycle of sleeping and waking, being force fed and then knocked out again. By the time he was deemed stable enough to be unrestrained, they told him it had been two weeks.

Also, he was here to stay. Here in the hospital for the criminally insane, hours north of Berlin. That would be one way of getting rid of him. Bitterly, he wished that they had simply let him die.

“You want to die because your brain is diseased,” the head doctor told him. “If you keep up with the suicide talk, you will be restrained during the day as well.”

He was already being strapped to the bed at night. Two cold nurses, barely acknowledging him as a human being, tightened the straps that kept him tight to the bed and then gave him a shot. It made him sleep, at least, with a minimum of dreams.

The days were the real nightmare. Gereon hadn’t thought he’d ever miss the prison in Berlin, but he did now. There was an old joke about the patients running the asylum, but Gereon felt there was a seed of truth there. Insane men, gibbering, drooling, screaming, shitting, raving, ranting, pulling their hair out. They went where they pleased for the most part, wandering in circles, room to room, lost in their own private hells or making hell for whoever they came across. If they made trouble for the nurses or doctors, they would be sedated and restrained, but no one seemed to care if they attacked each other.

Gereon tried to stay busy. He’d walk the halls, avoiding the more volatile patients. He could talk to some of the more lucid, calm patients, but even they were lost in their own minds most of the time. The nurses treated him like an unlikable dog, annoying at the best of times and a menace at the worst.

He’d look for sharp objects. An unsupervised syringe or scalpel, a shard of metal or glass, anything. But at the same time, he feared another suicide attempt. He'd fail and spend months strapped down again, force fed again, and drugged up constantly again.

But he no longer feared hell. He knew he was bound for it no matter how he died and self-murder would be the least of his crimes.

“This is hell,” one of the more subdued patients, Wilhelm, said to him. “They said it would be hot and dark, but no, it is cold and white. All of us are dead, my friend.”

Gereon couldn’t help but agree. Wilhelm would shout at invisible figures, pointing and waving his hands madly. But for moments he would come back to himself, look pained and afraid at his own actions.

“You see him?” he’d implore Gereon, gesturing to an empty stretch of wall.

He shook his head sadly and Wilhelm looked frightened.

“He’s standing right there,” he’d insist, anxious but defeated.

At least Wilhelm had people to talk to. Gereon didn’t often have the luxury. Days would go by and he would feel as though his voice had slipped away, like a princess in a fairy tale fleeing home.

The food was no better than at the prison. Bland, grey, boiled into flavourlessness. It was difficult to choke down, sometimes even impossible. But refusing meals left him strapped to the bed, head in a clamp while they poured slop into a funnel, down his throat.

Stuck in that hazy world between sleep and waking, brain soaked in panic but unable to scream, Gereon floated unmoored. His nightmares were of Anno and Helga and Karl. He could hear Charlotte’s voice, so real that she may have been standing right next to him.

“Gereon? Can you hear me? Are you awake?”

He wanted to soothe the urgency in her voice.

“Gereon?”

The sound of his name was like music. He felt a hand on his shoulder. That was certainly real enough. Cracking open his eyes was nearly beyond his meagre abilities.

_“Gereon?”_

Charlotte’s eyes were huge in her face. A pale oval framed in white. She was wearing a wimple, like the nurses, a red cross on her apron.

“Are you actually here?” he managed to croak out, lips parched, throat gravelly.

“I am,” she said, smiling now. He wanted to touch her so badly. But his wrist was strapped to the bed. “Just hold on a little longer.”

He felt her touch on his arm slide lower and she squeezed his hand. It was more comforting than every possible prayer.

The night came with its usual sedative and Gereon was thrown unprepared into the abyss of sleep. It felt like only seconds later he was waking up, but it was still dark in his room, moonlight stretching over the floor.

“What’s happening?” he mumbled groggily. A male orderly stood over him, wiping a syringe clean.

“Hush, everything is fine,” Charlotte whispered. She was there too, still dressed as a nurse.

Gereon felt a rush of gratitude. He wanted to leap up and hug her. But he was still too weak. Together, Charlotte and the orderly unstrapped him from the bed and helped him to stand. His arms and legs were so shaky he could barely support himself. Carefully they guided him to a wheelchair, both of them making deliberate effort to be silent.

It was like a dream as they wheeled him through the darkened halls. He’d never seen the place at night or from the outside. Trees stood all around them, lost high up in the gloom. There was a car parked on the gravel, a red cross painted on its side. Charlotte and the orderly had to lift Gereon bodily to get him inside.

“Lotte,” he mumbled, as she slid in beside him, pillowing his head in her lap.

“Shh, don’t strain yourself,” she whispered, stroking the side of his face.

The car came to life and they were off, Gereon rocking side to side gently as it trundled along. He kept his eyes open, looking up at the sliver of Charlotte’s face he could see from this angle. She smelled clean, light, freshly laundered. Like everything good and pure. Her hand stayed against his cheek the entire journey.

  
  


“How did you manage all of this?” Gereon asked her later.

They had made it to a small, rented bedsit. It was still very early morning, the sun not yet risen. Grey fog clung to the grass and Gereon could smell the fresh earth for the first time in far too long.

“I have a friend,” Charlotte said cagily. She had removed her wimple and apron and settled Gereon onto a bed more comfortable than possibly anything he had felt. “A rich friend.”

Gereon raised his eyebrows. “And he was willing to do all of this for someone he had never met?”

“Anything I wanted,” Charlotte said with a small smile.

Gereon did not feel like she was being very honest with him. But at the moment he couldn’t bring himself to care. It didn’t feel real yet, that he was free.

“Do you want a bath?” she asked him and he nodded. He hadn’t felt properly clean in years.

Charlotte filled the tub with water, the hottest, cleanest Gereon could have pictured. He was still very weak and Charlotte helped him undress and get into the tub.

“I hope you’re feeling stronger tomorrow,” Charlotte said, sitting next to the tub and looking carefully away as he cleaned himself. “You have a ticket to America.”

“America?” Gereon muttered, nonplussed.

Charlotte nodded, eyes crinkling as she smiled. “A new passport as well. A new life.”

“Why do this for me?” he muttered, water pooling between his hands.

She looked up at him, eyes sparkling. “You saved my life, remember?” He thought there might also be something more to it. But he didn’t ask.

“I’ve been lying in bed for months, it feels like,” he said after he’d dried off and dressed in the pajamas Charlotte had brought for him.

“You need your strength,” she said, brushing the hair tenderly off his forehead.

“Lie with me,” he said, cupping her wrist in his hand.

The sun had risen, but Charlotte had closed the curtains against it. A thin stripe of light fell across her body as she stripped off the drab nurse’s dress. In only a peach pink slip, she crawled into bed beside him. He’d dreamt of this, longed for it. Her warmth was better than he had ever dared imagine.

He cuddled her close, desperate for a kind touch after so long. She kissed the side of his face, stroked his cheek.

“You need your rest,” she mumbled, but he shushed her.

“I need you more.”

Her kiss could've revived a drowned man. Gereon had been asleep before, crushed into a black nightmare. Charlotte had been plucked from the sweetest dream. She guided his trembling hands to her breasts, tugged open the buttons of his shirt. It wasn’t the easiest, allowing her to touch him. Touch had been a source of pain for so long he flinched despite himself, heart pounding. But she did not despair. She was gentle, slow, patient. She guided him inside her and let him set the pace, his arms shaking as he held himself up. He didn’t want to stop looking at her. He wanted to keep looking at her forever.

Afterwards, he fell asleep curled around her body, one hand resting on her breast. Hours later he woke up and was ready again, rutting against her in his sleep. Charlotte giggled and moaned, cupping the back of his neck as his hips moved against her, holding him close to her as if he might fly away.

He did feel better by the evening. No sedatives or antipsychotics in his system, schnitzel and beer in his belly. He shaved himself in the bathroom, seeing his own reflection for the first time in ages. He looked wan, dark bags under his eyes, jaw and cheekbones more pronounced than usual. There was grey in his hair now, a thick streak that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. But at least he felt human again. Whole.

In the bedroom, Charlotte was sitting on the bed brushing her hair.

“You look beautiful,” he told her and she laughed.

“I haven’t had a bath yet, and my hair...”

“You’re beautiful,” he repeated and fell onto his knees in front of her.

He buried his face in her lap, hugging her around the waist.

“So are you,” she said in a low voice and Gereon shook his head best he could with his face in her lap. “Yes, you are.” She stroked his greying hair, rubbed the back of his neck.

They made love again with the sunlight fading, orange and pink turning her skin bronze. He found himself crying against her neck after he came, shuddering and wrung out. Charlotte cradled his head in her arms, rubbing his back, hands skimming over his ribs that still ached in places from being bruised so many times. He watched the colours change in her hair from deep orange-red to silver moonlight. He wanted to stay lying in her arms until Judgment Day.

But the morning came, and with it his voyage to America. Charlotte had a suit for him, luggage with more clothes and essentials. A car came for them and Charlotte held his hand all the way to the train station. He couldn’t help but notice there was no suitcase for her.

“I hope you don’t get seasick,” she said softly, the ocean air buffeting her curls around her face.

“You’re not coming,” he said matter-of-factly and Charlotte’s mouth twisted as she adjusted his tie rather than answer. “Your rich friend. He’s not doing all this for nothing.”

Charlotte looked up at him finally, her eyes liquid and deep. The seagulls screeched. Boat horns wailed. A sound of pain.

“He’s a baron,” she said simply. “He wants me to stay with him. He’ll take care of me.”

“Lotte,” he said, voice breaking.

“It’s OK,” she said, voice heavy. “It won’t be all bad.”

He brushed a curl off her cheek. It was followed by a tear and he brushed that off too. “Where should I write to you?”

Charlotte shook her head, looking pained. “He’ll burn them,” she said. “I belong to him now.”

Gereon took her in his arms then; she was shaking so much.

“You don’t belong to anyone,” he said into her hair and she sobbed into the front of his shirt.

But in the end, he had to leave. He kissed her as many times as he could and thought he’d always remember her like this: tasting like the ocean, laughing and crying at the same time. He watched her from a place on the deck for as long as he could until she disappeared into the horizon. Tears were cold on his face, the ocean wind whipped against him fiercely. He reached into his coat pocket and there he found a handkerchief that Charlotte must have put there. At least he had something to remember her by.

  
  


**TWO YEARS LATER**  


“Good work, Freddy. See you later.”

Sam was always calling Gereon 'Freddy' and now the whole road crew did. Gereon didn’t mind, Friedrich wasn’t really his name anyway.

He bought a newspaper on his way home, bought a pretzel from a streetcart for dinner. Americans made the worst sausages he’d ever had, but their pretzels weren’t terrible. He scanned the newspaper for familiar names, heart sinking even without recognizing anyone. Things were not looking good in Germany and it was depressing news with every new day.

His work was hard, backbreaking, monotonous. But at least it was honest and paid. The other men on the crew weren’t always that friendly to Germans and they called him Kraut just as often as his actual (fake) name, but they’d warmed up to him in time.

He was still licking mustard off his fingers as he took the seven floors up to his small apartment. It was a victory, finding a place to live in New York City that wasn’t crawling with roaches and would even rent to an immigrant, but at least he had a place to call home now. He greeted his landlady in the hall.

“There’s a young lady waiting for you,” she said with a knowing wink. “She was so nice, I let her in. I hope you don’t mind.”

Gereon gave her a tight smile. He thought it might be Nellie, one of the girls who served beer at the local bar. He liked her well enough, took her home a few times, but he thought she might be more attached than he was.

He unlocked the door to his apartment, hoping he could get her to leave without causing a scene. He was tired, hot and sweaty from laying pavement all day, and really just wanted to have a shower and go to sleep.

But it wasn’t Nellie who he found, standing on his threadbare carpet in a buttoned blouse and plus fours as though she had just stepped out of the Berlin Police Station.

“Gereon,” Charlotte breathed, her smile wide.

He dropped his newspaper on the floor. His coat didn’t make it to the coat hook either. She fell into his arms like she had never left them.

“You’re here,” he gasped, heart pounding. He could feel her heart too, just a microsecond out of time with his. “How are you here?”

“I was his until he died,” she said, muffled by his shoulder. “Now I’m not anyone’s.”

Gereon kissed her, her mouth, her cheeks, all over her face. Her hair was longer now, framing her face in brown curls. “We have each other now,” he said, kissing her long and hard.

“We have forever,” she said and he carried her into the bedroom.


End file.
